Baryon resonances and strong decays⋆

T. Melde and W. Plessas

Institute for Physics, Theoretical Physics, Graz, Austria

Received:
8
November
2007
Accepted:
21
January
2008
Published online:
20
March
2008

Abstract

Constituent quark models provide a reasonable description of the baryon mass spectra. However, even in the light- and strange-flavor sectors several intriguing shortcomings remain. Especially with regard to strong decays of baryon resonances no consistent picture has so far emerged, and the existing experimental data cannot be explained in a satisfactory manner. Recently, first covariant calculations with modern constituent quark models have become available for all π , η , and K decay modes of the low-lying light and strange baryons. They generally produced a remarkable underestimation of the experimental data for partial decay widths. We summarize the main results and discuss their impact on the classification of baryon resonances into flavor multiplets. These findings are of particular relevance for future efforts in the experimental investigation of baryon resonances.